This little girl HAS a lot of energy and TAKES a lot of energy!
Back before Rusty joined our life, it was just Casey and me who worked in our farm’s fields (with the occasional help of a friend). As we’d harvest for market or hand weed onions, we always had plenty of time to talk. Sometimes, during these extended conversations, we would play a game we called, “What-the-farm-will-do-when-the-sh*t-hits-the-fan” or “When-fuel-hits-$10/gallon.” We figured those two statements were about equivalent at the time, and we assumed that someday it was highly possible that our farm (along with every other business and household) would be faced with the challenge of energy scarcity.
It was always a lively conversation as we pondered the potential tweaks and noted our existing strengths (relatively close proximity to town) and weaknesses (tractor dependent).
A few years have passed since we had the time to give this topic as much attention as we used to, and in the meantime the farm has evolved quite a bit. If we were to revive the conversation, we would be working with some of the same factors (both those strengths and weaknesses above are still true) but with many new ones thrown in related to animals and scale of our operation.
In a general sense, our farm has five types of energy that contribute to its operation. The first is of course just basic fuel — the diesel, gas, and electricity that we require to operate tractors, vehicles, infrastructure, coolers, and our irrigation wells. When we sometimes have similar conversations with other folks, the inevitable answer they give is “biofuels.” At this point in our experience, we understand some economic principles well enough to know that any equivalent goods go up in price with the scarce ones. Petrol fuels go up? Biofuels will keep pace. So, the cost and availability will probably be equivalent. This point leads us to one conclusion: conservation is really the only answer to possible fuel scarcities — efficiency in all our moving parts.
Besides, we’ve recent had a wake-up to the efficacy of using biofuels. This year we’ve had to have the fuel injectors in both our tractor and our field vehicle rebuilt because of biodiesel use. All the mechanics we’ve ever worked with have cautioned us away from biofuels, but we were insistent, and have always run some kind of bioblend in our farm vehicles (the percentage in the blend varied with the temperature outside since cold weather makes biodiesel gum up). Our main tractor mechanic was very disturbed by the damage the biodiesel had done to our tractor when he looked at it earlier this year. Keeping our equipment in good shape is an important goal, so — alas — we have switched to petrol fuels.
The second form of energy on our farm is embodied energy – that is, the energy that it takes to make and get to us any tools, seeds, etc. that we use. Energy is used at every step of the process — extracting raw materials, refining them, manufacturing goods, shipping them to us (not to mention all the indirect energy used in the associated components of each industry — the lights in the office at the factory, etc). Presumably, as energy costs go up, the cost of goods will go up too. Again, for us, this would become a question of priorities and conservation. In this case, conservation also includes giving our current equipment the longest lifespan possible. Complicated pieces of equipment such as our tractor represent huge amounts of embodied energy, so it is worth it to us to keep them running well for decades and decades. Hence switching to petrol diesel.
The third form of energy on our farm is human labor. If you scanned the fields on our farm, it’d be easy to recognize the fuel-based needs of things like our tractor and machinery, but all those living, breathing people also represent enormous energy costs — just the fuel for the daily commute from town adds up quickly, not to mention all the other energy costs associated with each employee’s household. In an energy scarcity type of situation, I imagine that all households would require cut-backs, ours and our employees’ included. Perhaps more of our employees would live on the farm in very simple dwellings. Hard to know. Sometimes it’s easy to think that in a true energy scarcity scenario, we’d lean more heavily on human labor, but realistically it would take hundreds of people working full-time to replace the productive potential of one tractor operating part-time. The only way to make that scenario “pencil out” is slave labor (which is, of course, historically how many societies accomplished big feats of agriculture or building). Not an option in any sense. So, we imagine that our farm would always budget for some mechanized labor and continue to use human labor for the things that make sense (i.e. humans harvesting by hand, as we do now, but not turning the ground).
The fourth type of energy on our farm is animal power. Now wait, don’t get too excited. We don’t have draft horses on our farm. But, our animals do contribute work to the farm, specifically by grazing our fields for us — in place of or in conjunction with our tractor’s mower. They also help irrigate our pastures by moving water from their trough and distributing it all over the ground in the form of urine. These are not insignificant contributions, and the longer we have animals on the farm, the more we appreciate the role they play in keeping our systems healthy and strong. But, of course, they also take energy to manage too, mostly in the form of human labor. We move our animals to new ground daily, and doing so takes several hours of work every day. Overall, however, I’d say that most of our animals contribute more energy to the farm than they take, especially the grass eaters (sheep and cows) require no or very little other feed or supplements.
(As an aside, I should note that poultry is actually very energy intensive to produce for food at every point. Individual birds require more energy at every stage of life and death — heat lamps for brooding, daily rations of grain feed, and individual slaughtering. Even though we produce our own animal feed, we still consider chickens to be very “expensive” to produce, since their grain feed has to be combined, stored, and then milled. In contrast, our sheep and cows eat grass in place. Also, slaughtering birds is a time intensive project — recently, it took four of us four hours to process 44 meat chickens. Meanwhile, a sheep or pig can be slaughtered and butchered by one person in one hour and provides more overall meat and represents only one death. Interesting food for thought for us farmers and eaters.)
The last form of energy on our farm is the best — the source that is the origin of all life and all energy and is free and continual. The sun. The sun makes the grass grow to feed our animals. It makes the trees grow to produce our fruit. It makes the vegetables grow. And all other life flows from photosynthesis. In any conversation we have about our farm’s viability, resiliency, and profitability into the future, we always come back to the sun. How can make best — direct — use of this miracle? As I wrote about in a prior newsletter, grass is a big answer for us. We believe that grass can feed the world, and we are happy to have a large percentage of our 100+ acre farm in pasture to feed our animals.
All kinds of perennial plants can be powerful in this way — trees included. They capture that sunlight (along with free carbon in the atmosphere) and turn it into stored energy. Energy is stored in the tree’s parts — the leaves (which may fall to fertilize the ground), the fruit, the wood (which may eventually be used to heat a home or a necessary object) …
But even annual crops such as vegetables can be powerful users of the sun. I am amazed at the ability of a single tiny seed (the size of a pinhead) to grow into a ten lbs winter storage cabbage. With a bit of fertility, water, and human labor, that seed produces a true miracle of transformation. Of course, we need to be careful when growing annual crops to preserve the topsoil and keep green stuff growing (cover crops and such), or else any gains are lost when the wind blows away soil in the winter wind. Erosion is, of course, just one of the Big Problems of annual commodity crop production today (including the production of biofuels).
I imagine that these feats of the sun’s magic excite biofuel promoters as well. But, for me, efficiency is all about keeping the end product close to the source — the sun. So, perhaps biofuels (and solar power) will be part of a future solution to energy scarcity, but I wonder if all the smarties in the world are over-thinking and missing the existing solutions (plants as plants) and creating new problems (erosion). I don’t think we will find shortcuts to get around a energy scarcity — everything ultimately requires energy, and a scarcity will mean less. But life will continue, yes? I’m certainly no expert on these incredibly complex types of problems, but from our vantage point on the farm, we lean toward existing simple biological solutions to future challenges.
Grass and trees. They may not fuel our tractor, but they can certainly reduce our need to operate our tractor. And they can fill our bellies and heat our homes. I imagine that in that possible future scenario of scarcity, our simple needs will become our highest priorities. Perhaps they should be now too. And, perhaps, along with solving those puzzles of practical existence, we should consider what other forms of joy can be in our life — laughter derived from play as a means of joy rather than expensive consumerism. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here, but these are always useful reminders to our family as well. Even living way out here on our 100 acres of farmland, we can lose track of our grounding amidst the busyness of daily life. What is our center? What fuels our souls? These are the question of every generation and will continue to be. Hopefully any new era of energy will bring positive answers as we perhaps have to embrace an existence of less.
Perhaps.
But, in the meantime, it is the season of more on the farm. Could we feed the world with zucchini? It certainly seems like it at times. Oh, how that summer sun makes things grow! Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
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Meet this week’s vegetables:
- Tomatoes
- Red plums
- Chard
- Kale
- Basil
- Cut lettuce mix
- Summer squash & zucchini
- Carrots
- Green onions
